Christ Jesus, our great Master, told those Jews who believed in his teachings (John 8: 31, 32), "If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." He also revealed how this should be done. He demonstrated not only that the knowledge of man's selfhood as a child of God enabled him to be free himself, but that such knowledge and understanding of spiritual facts permitted him to free others.

Our Master always healed with Truth, the Word of God, the Christ. He never resorted to material medicines or methods, and made no concessions to persons or opinions. Instead, he knew the truth about God and man. This truth when understood healed the multitudes in that day and is healing multitudes today.

The truth about anything good, anything real, is what it is in divine Mind—what God knows of it. The truth about man, which is the truth about you and me, is that man is as perfect as effect as is his creator, divine Principle, God, as cause, because God created him in the likeness of Himself. Likewise, the truth about pain, disease, unemployment, lack, unhappiness, sin, sorrow—all discord—is that God, good, never made them. Hence they are untrue, unreal, powerless; waking dream shadows, which are wholly apart from actuality.

A man in a hospital with serious internal complications was informed by the doctor that he could not live through the night. The staff physicians had exhausted every known means which had offered even a faint hope of cure, and surgery was deemed impossible because of the patient's weakened condition. The man's wife, a student of Christian Science, called a Christian Science practitioner to help her know the basic truth about God and man, since the practitioner could not specifically work for the husband, who was under medical care by his own request and preference.

The practitioner assured the wife that life is not a human vagary, but man lives because God is his Life. Man lives by divine plan and authority. Both the practitioner and the woman understood this to be true and immediately applicable, as all spiritual facts eternally are. They also realized that human predictions, since they are not of divine Mind, are fallible and unreliable, and that God is the only power on earth or in heaven. The man not only lived through the night, but' to the amazement of the medical men continued to recover until he was wholly well. He is now, after several years of useful activity in a large business, in excellent health, and his experience proves the unreliability of medical prognostications and the wisdom and potency of knowing the truth that makes free.

The scientific declarations that were made did not make the truths about God and man true, for they have always been true. They simply acknowledged the divine fact that man, made in the likeness of Spirit, not matter, is and always has been beautiful, whole, fearless, intelligent, perfect, naturally partaking of all the qualities of divine Mind. Every individual can through the application of Christian Science exercise his divine right to be free from everything that is not good. Declaring the truth about God and man is a healing, glorifying experience, and becomes a spontaneous procedure as spirituality unfolds in individual consciousness through the study and application of Christian Science. Mary Baker Eddy's words in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 151) bring God very near to us: "God is our Father and our Mother, our Minister and the great Physician: He is man's only real relative on earth and in heaven. David sang, 'Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee.' Brother, sister, beloved in the Lord, knowest thou thyself, and art thou acquainted with God? If not, I pray thee as a Christian Scientist, delay not to make Him thy first acquaintance."

The Christian Scientist, understanding in some degree the allness of God as here brought out by our Leader, consistently declares the truth because of his love for God and man, whether there seem to be problems before him or not. When trials or problems cast their shadows upon his mental horizon, the consciousness of the Christian Scientist fills with deep gratitude for the opportunity to glorify God through the practical application of the spiritual understanding of Truth, which heals. He rejoices that the truth about man is true not only about himself but about every individual in the universe. He is grateful that divine Truth is present and available to solve every national and international problem. He is grateful that each individual is in his real selfhood spiritual, the child of God.

Mrs. Eddy's discovery of Christian Science was a positive proof of our Master's words quoted at the beginning of this article, for when apparently at the point of death she turned expectantly to the pages of the Bible. Catching a glimpse of divine reality, she knew the truth so clearly that she was instantaneously healed and arose from the bed a well woman. Her own words are descriptive of this experience, (Science and Health with Key to the Scripture, p. 108): "When apparently near the confines of mortal existence, standing already within the shadow of the death-valley, I learned these truths in divine Science: that all real being is in God, the divine Mind, and that Life Truth, and Love are all-powerful and ever-present; that the opposite of 'Truth,—called error, sin, sickness, disease, death,—is the false testimony of false material sense, of mind in matter; that this false sense evolves, in belief, a subjective state of mortal mind which this same so-called mind names matter, thereby shutting out the true sense of Spirit."

Our Master said (John 17:3). "This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." To know God is to understand the sinless, fearless, deathless nature of immortal Life. It is to know and experience the warmth, the tenderness, and the fearlessness of Love. It is to realize and utilize the protection, the power, and the strength of Truth's ever-operative law, Christian Science.

When the truth about God and man is spiritually discerned and demonstrated, the truth will make free. Then it wall be seen that there is and can be no power but God and His Christ. Evil's pretense is powerless. "But," Mrs. Eddy reveals in "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" (pp. 307, 308), "the divine Love will accomplish what all the powers of earth combined can never prevent being accomplished—the advent of divine healing and its divine Science." This is indeed the truth that heals.

Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed: save me, and I shall be saved: for thou art my praise.—Jeremiah 17:14.